Principia Ethica (1903) Chapter I: The Subject-Matter of Ethics. · Chapter I: The Subject-Matter of Ethics. ... human beings, is good, and what is ... does not deal at all with facts

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Chapter I: The Subject-Matter of Ethics.It is very easy to point out some among our every-day judgments, with the truth of which

Ethics is undoubtedly concerned. Whenever we say, So and so is a good man, or That fellowis a villain; whenever we ask What ought I to do? or Is it wrong for me to do like this?;whenever we hazard such remarks as Temperance is a virtue and drunkenness a viceit isundoubtedly the business of Ethics to discuss such questions and such statements; to arguewhat is the true answer when we ask what it is right to do, and to give reasons for thinking thatour statements about the character of persons or the morality of actions are true or false. In thevast majority of cases, where we make statements involving any of the terms virtue, vice,duty, right, ought, good, bad, we are making ethical judgments; and if we wish todiscuss their truth, we shall be discussing a point of Ethics.

So much as this is not disputed; but it falls very far short of defining the province of Ethics.That province may indeed be defined as the whole truth about that which is at the same timecommon to all such judgments and peculiar to them. But we have still to ask the question:What is it that is thus common and peculiar? And this is a question to which very differentanswers have been given by ethical philosophers of acknowledged reputation, and none ofthem, perhaps, completely satisfactory.

If we take such examples as those given above, we shall not be far wrong in saying thatthey are all of them concerned with the question of conductwith the question, what, in theconduct of us, human beings, is good, and what is bad, what is right, and what is wrong. Forwhen we say that a man is good, we commonly mean that he acts rightly; when we say thatdrunkenness is a vice, we commonly mean that to get drunk is a wrong or wicked action. Andthis discussion of human conduct is, in fact, that with which the name Ethics is mostintimately associated. It is so associated by derivation; and conduct is undoubtedly by far thecommonest and most generally interesting object of ethical judgments.

Accordingly, we find that many ethical philosophers are disposed to accept as an adequatedefinition of Ethics the statement that it deals with the question what is good or bad in humanconduct. They hold that its enquiries are properly confined to conduct or to practice; theyhold that the name practical philosophy covers all the matter with which it has to do. Now,without discussing the proper meaning of the word (for verbal questions are properly left tothe writers of dictionaries and other persons interested in literature; philosophy, as we shallsee, has no concern with them), I may say that I intend to use Ethics to cover more thanthisa usage, for which there is, I think, quite sufficient authority. I am using it to cover an

Principia Ethica (1903)by G. E. Moore

Chapter I: The Subject-Matter of Ethics: PRINCIPIA ETHICA ... http://fair-use.org/g-e-moore/principia-ethica/chapter-i

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enquiry for which, at all events, there is no other word: the general enquiry into what is good.

Ethics is undoubtedly concerned with the question what good conduct is; but, being concernedwith this, it obviously does not start at the beginning, unless it is prepared to tell us what isgood as well as what is conduct. For good conduct is a complex notion: all conduct is notgood; for some is certainly bad and some may be indifferent. And on the other hand, otherthings, beside conduct, may be good; and if they are so, then, good denotes some property,that is common to them and conduct; and if we examine good conduct alone of all goodthings, then we shall be in danger of mistaking for this property, some property which is notshared by those other things: and thus we shall have made a mistake about Ethics even in thislimited sense; for we shall not know what good conduct really is. This is a mistake whichmany writers have actually made, from limiting their enquiry to conduct. And hence I shall tryto avoid it by considering first what is good in general; hoping, that if we can arrive at anycertainty about this, it will be much easier to settle the question of good conduct; for we allknow pretty well what conduct is. This, then, is our first question: What is good? and What isbad? and to the discussion of this question (or these questions) I give the name Ethics, sincethat science must, at all events, include it.

But this is a question which may have many meanings. If, for example, each of us wereto say I am doing good now or I had a good dinner yesterday these statements would eachof them be some sort of answer to our question, although perhaps a false one. So, too, when Aasks B what school he ought to send his son to, Bs answer will certainly be an ethicaljudgment. And similarly all distribution of praise or blame to any personage or thing that hasexisted, now exists, or will exist, does give some answer to the question What is good? In allsuch cases some particular thing is judged to be good or bad: the question What? is answeredby This. But this is not the sense in which a scientific Ethics asks the question. Not one, ofall the many million answers of this kind, which must be true, can form a part of an ethicalsystem; although that science must contain reasons and principles sufficient for deciding onthe truth of all of them. there are far too many persons, things and events in the world, past,present, or to come, for a discussion of their individual merits to be embraced in any science.Ethics, therefore, does not deal at all with facts of this nature, facts that are unique, individual,absolutely particular; facts with which such studies as history, geography, astronomy arecompelled, in part at least, to deal. And, for this reason, it is not the business of the ethicalphilosopher to give personal advice or exhortation.

But there is another meaning which may be given to the question What is good?Books are good would be an answer to it, though an answer obviously false; for some booksare very bad indeed. And ethical judgments of this kind do indeed belong to Ethics; though Ishall not deal with many of them. Such is the judgment Pleasure is gooda judgment, of


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which Ethics should discuss the truth, although it is not nearly as important as that otherjudgment, with which we shall be much occupied presentlyPleasure alone is good. It isjudgments of this sort, which are made in such books on Ethics as contain a list ofvirtuesin Aristotles Ethics for example. But it is judgments of precisely the same kind,which form the substance of what is commonly supposed to be a study different from Ethics,and one much less respectablethe study of Casuistry. We may be told that Casuistry differsfrom Ethics in that it is much more detailed and particular, Ethics much more general. But it ismost important to notice that Casuistry does not deal with anything that is absolutely particularparticular in the only sense in which it a perfectly precise line can be drawn between it andwhat is general. It is not particular in the sense just noticed, the sense in which this book is aparticular book, and As friends advice particular advice. Casuistry may indeed be moreparticular and Ethics more general; but that means they differ only in degree and not in kind.And this is universally true of particular and general, when used in this common, butinaccurate, sense. So far as Ethics allows itself to give lists of virtues or even to nameconstituents of the Ideal, it is indistinguishable from Casuistry. Both alike deal with what isgeneral, in the sense in which physics and chemistry deal with what is general. Just aschemistry aims at discovering what are the properties of oxygen, wherever it occurs, and notonly of this or that particular specimen of oxygen; so Casuistry aims at discovering whatactions are good, whenever they occur. In this respect Ethics and Casuistry alike are to beclassed with such sciences as physics, chemistry, and physiology, in their absolute distinctionfrom those of which history and geography are instances. And it is to be noted that, owing totheir detailed nature, casuistical investigations are actually nearer to physics and to chemistrythan are the investigations usually assigned to Ethics. For just as physics cannot rest contentwith the discovery that light is propagated by waves of ether, but must go on to discover theparticular nature of the ether-waves corresponding to each several colour; so Casuistry, notcontent with the general law that charity is a virtue must attempt to discover the relative meritsof every different form of charity. Casuistry forms, therefore, part of the ideal of ethicalscience: Ethics cannot be complete without it. The defects of Casuistry are not defects ofprinciple; no objection can be taken to its aim and object. It has failed only because it is far toodifficult a subject to be treated adequately in our present state of knowledge. The casuist hasbeen unable to distinguish, in the cases which he treats, those elements upon which their valuedepends. Hence he often thinks two cases to be alike in respect of value, when in reality theyare alike only in some other respect. It is to mistakes of this kind that the pernicious influenceof such investigations has been due. For Casuistry is the goal of ethical investigation. It cannotbe safely attempted at the beginning of our studies, but only at the end.

But our question What is good? may still have another meaning. We may, in the thirdplace, mean to ask, not what thing or things are good, but how good is to be defined. This isan enquiry which belongs only to Ethics, not to Casuistry; and this is the enquiry which will


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occupy us first.

It is an enquiry to which most special attention should be directed; since this question, howgood is to be defined, is the most fundamental question in all Ethics. That which is meant bygood is, in fact, except its converse bad, the only simple object of thought which is peculiarto Ethics. Its definition is, therefore, the most essential point in the definition of Ethics; andmoreover a mistake with regard to it entails a far larger number of erroneous ethical judgmentsthan any other. Unless this first question be fully understood, and its true answer clearlyrecognised, the rest of Ethics is as good as useless from the point of view of systematicknowledge. True ethical judgments, of the two kinds last dealt with, may indeed be made bythose who do not know the answer to this question as well as by those who do; and it goeswithout saying that the two classes of people may live equally good lives. But it is extremelyunlikely that the most general ethical judgments will be equally valid, in the absence of a trueanswer to this question; I shall presently try to shew that the gravest errors have been largelydue to beliefs in a false answer. And, in any case, it is impossible that, till the answer to thisquestion be known, any one should know what is the evidence for any ethical judgmentwhatsoever. But the main object of Ethics, as a systematic science, is to give correct reasonsfor thinking that this or that is good; and, unless this question be answered, such reasonscannot be given. Even, therefore, apart from the fact that a false answer leads to falseconclusions, the present enquiry is a most necessary and important part of the science ofEthics.

What, then, is good? How is good to be defined? Now it may be thought that this is averbal question. A definition does indeed often mean the expressing of one words meaning inother words. But this is not the sort of definition I am asking for. Such a definition can neverbe of ultimate importance to any study except lexicography. If I wanted that kind of definitionI should have to consider in the first place how people generally used the word good; but mybusiness is not with its proper usage, as established by custom. I should, indeed, be foolish if Itried to use it for something which it did not usually denote: if, for instance, I were toannounce that, whenever I used the word good, I must be understood to be thinking of thatobject which is usually denoted by the word table. I shall, therefore, use the word in thesense in which I think it is ordinarily used; but at the same time I am not anxious to discusswhether I am right in thinking it is so used. My business is solely with that object or idea,which I hold, rightly or wrongly, that the word is generally used to stand for. What I want todiscover is the nature of that object or idea, and about this I am extremely anxious to arrive atan agreement.

But if we understand the question in this sense, my answer to it may seem a very disappointingone. If I am asked, What is good? my answer is that good is good, and that is the end of thematter. Or if I am asked How is good to be defined? my answer is that it cannot be defined,


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and that is all I have to say about it. But disappointing as these answers may appear, they areof the very last importance. To readers who are familiar with philosophic terminology, I canexpress their importance by saying that they amount to this: That propositions about the goodare all of them synthetic and never analytic; and that is plainly no trivial matter. And the samething may be expressed more popularly, by saying that, if I am right, then nobody can foistupon us such an axiom as that Pleasure is the only good or that The good is the desired onthe pretence that this is the very meaning of the word.

Let us, then, consider this position. My point is that good is a simple notion, just asyellow is a simple notion; that, just as you cannot, by any manner of means, explain toanyone who does not already know it, what yellow is, so you cannot explain what good is.Definitions of the kind that I was asking for, definitions which describe the real nature of theobject or notion denoted by a word, and which do not merely tell us what the word is used tomean, are only possible when the object or notion in question is something complex. You cangive a definition of a horse, because a horse has many different properties and qualities, all ofwhich you can enumerate. But when you have enumerated them all, when you have reduced ahorse to his simplest terms, you can no longer define those terms. They are simply somethingwhich you think of or perceive, and to anyone who cannot think of or perceive them, you cannever, by any definition, make their nature known. It may perhaps be objected to this that weare able to describe to others, objects which they have never seen or thought of. We can, forinstance, make a man understand what a chimaera is, although he has never heard of one orseen one. You can tell him that it is an animal with a lionesss head and body, with a goatshead growing from the middle of its back, and with a snake in place of its tail. But here theobject which you are describing is a complex object; it is entirely composed of parts, withwhich we are all perfectly familiara snake, a goat, a lioness; and we know, too, the mannerin which those parts are to be put together, because we know what is meant by the middle of alionesss back, and where her tail is wont to grow. And so it is with all objects not previouslyknown, which we are able to define: they are all complex; all composed of parts, which maythemselves, in the first instance, be capable of similar definition, but which must in the end bereducible to simplest parts, which can no longer be defined. But yellow and good, we say, arenot complex: they are notions of that simple kind, out of which definitions are composed andwith which the power of further defining ceases.

When we say, as Webster says, The definition of horse is A hoofed quadruped of thegenus Equus, we may, in fact, mean three different things. (1) We may mean merely When Isay horse, you are to understand that I am talking about a hoofed quadruped of the genusEquus. This might be called the arbitrary verbal definition: and I do not mean that good isindefinable in that sense. (2) We may mean, as Webster ought to mean: When most Englishpeople say horse, they mean a hoofed quadruped of the genus Equus. This may be called


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the verbal definition proper, and I do not say that good is indefinable in this sense either; for itis certainly possible to discover how people use a word: otherwise, we could never haveknown that good may be translated by gut in German and by bon in French. But (3) wemay, when we define horse, mean something much more important. We may mean that acertain object, which we all of us know, is composed in a certain manner: that it has four legs,a head, a heart, a liver, etc., etc., all of them arranged in definite relations to one another. It isin this sense that I deny good to be definable. I say that it is not composed of any parts, whichwe can substitute for it in our minds when we are thinking of it. We might think just as clearlyand correctly about a horse, if we thought of all its parts and their arrangement instead ofthinking of the whole: we could, I say, think how a horse differed from a donkey just as well,just as truly, in this way, as now we do, only not so easily; but there is nothing whatsoeverwhich we could substitute for good; and that is what I mean, when I say that good isindefinable.

But I am afraid I have still not removed the chief difficulty which may preventacceptance of the proposition that good is indefinable. I do not mean to say that the good, thatwhich is good, is thus indefinable; if I did think so, I should not be writing on Ethics, for mymain object is to help towards discovering that definition. It is just because I think there willbe less risk of error in our search for a definition of the good, that I am now insisting thatgood is indefinable. I must try to explain the difference between these two. I suppose it may begranted that good is an adjective. Well, the good, that which is good, must therefore bethe substantive to which the adjective good will apply: it must be the whole of that to whichthe adjective will apply, and the adjective must always truly apply to it. But if it is that towhich the adjective will apply, it must be something different from that adjective itself; and thewhole of that something different, whatever it is, will be our definition of the good. Now itmay be that this something will have other adjectives, beside good, that will apply to it. Itmay be full of pleasure, for example; it may be intelligent; and if those two adjectives arereally part of its definition, then it will certainly be true, that pleasure and intelligence aregood. And many people appear to think that, if we say Pleasure and intelligence are good, orif we say Only pleasure and intelligence are good, we are defining good. Well, I cannotdeny that propositions of this nature may sometimes be called definitions; I do not know wellenough how the word is generally used to decide upon this point. I only wish it to beunderstood that that is not what I mean when I say there is no possible definition of good, andthat I shall not mean this if I use the word again. I do most fully believe that some trueproposition of the form Intelligence is good and intelligence alone is good can be found; ifnone could be found, our definition of the good would be impossible. As it is, I believe thegood to be definable; and yet I still say that good itself is indefinable.

Good, then, if we mean by it that quality which we assert to belong to a thing, when


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we say that the thing is good, is incapable of any definition, in the most important sense of thatword. The most important sense of definition is that in which a definition states what are theparts which invariably compose a certain whole; and in this sense good has no definitionbecause it is simple and has no parts. It is one of those innumerable objects of thought whichare themselves incapable of definition, because they are the ultimate terms of reference towhich whatever is capable of definition must be defined. That there must be an indefinitenumber of such terms is obvious, on reflection; since we cannot define anything except by ananalysis, which, when carried as far as it will go, refers us to something, which is simplydifferent from anything else, and which by that ultimate difference explains the peculiarity ofthe whole which we are defining: for every whole contains some parts which are common toother wholes also. There is, therefore, no intrinsic difficulty in the contention that gooddenotes a simple and indefinable quality. There are many other instances of such qualities.

Consider yellow, for example. We may try to define it, by describing its physical equivalent;we may state what kind of light-vibrations must stimulate the normal eye, in order that we mayperceive it. But a moments reflection is sufficient to shew that those light-vibrations are notthemselves what we mean by yellow. They are not what we perceive. Indeed, we should neverhave been able to discover their existence, unless we had first been struck by the patentdifference of quality between the different colours. The most we can be entitled to say of thosevibrations is that they are what corresponds in space to the yellow which we actually perceive.

Yet a mistake of this simple kind has commonly been made about good. It may be true thatall things which are good are also something else, just as it is true that all things which areyellow produce a certain kind of vibration in the light. And it is a fact, that Ethics aims atdiscovering what are those other properties belonging to all things which are good. But far toomany philosophers have thought that when they named those other properties they wereactually defining good; that these properties, in fact, were simply not other, but absolutelyand entirely the same with goodness. This view I propose to call the naturalistic fallacy andof it I shall now endeavour to dispose.

Let us consider what it is such philosophers say. And first it is to be noticed that they donot agree among themselves. They not only say that they are right as to what good is, but theyendeavour to prove that other people who say that it is something else, are wrong. One, forinstance, will affirm that good is pleasure, another, perhaps, that good is that which is desired;and each of these will argue eagerly to prove that other people who say that it is somethingelse, are wrong. One, for instance, will affirm that good is pleasure, another, perhaps, that goodis that which is desired; and each of these will argue eagerly to prove that the other is wrong.But how is that possible? One of them says that good is nothing but the object of desire, and at


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the same time tries to prove that it is not pleasure. But from his first assertion, that good justmeans the object of desire, one of two things must follow as regards his proof:

(1) He may be trying to prove that the object of desire is not pleasure. But, if this be all, whereis his Ethics? The position he is maintaining is merely a psychological one. Desire issomething which occurs in our minds, and pleasure is something else which so occurs; and ourwould-be ethical philosopher is merely holding that the latter is not the object of the former.But what has that to do with the question in dispute? His opponent held the ethical propositionthat pleasure was the good, and although he should prove a million times over thepsychological proposition that pleasure is not the object of desire, he is no nearer proving hisopponent to be wrong. The position is like this. One man says a triangle is a circle: anotherreplies, A triangle is a straight line, and I will prove to you that I am right: for (this is theonly argument) a straight line is not a circle. That is quite true, the other may reply; butnevertheless a triangle is a circle, and you have said nothing whatever to prove the contrary.What is proved is that one of us is wrong, for we agree that a triangle cannot be both a straightline and a circle: but which is wrong, there can be no earthly means of proving, since youdefine triangle as straight line and I define it as circle.Well, that is one alternative whichany naturalistic Ethics has to face; if good is defined as something else, then it is impossibleeither to prove that any other definition is wrong or even to deny such definition.

(2) The other alternative will scarcely be more welcome. It is that the discussion is after all averbal one. When A says Good means pleasant and B says Good means desired, they maymerely wish to assert that most people have used the word for what is pleasant and for what isdesired respectively. And this is quite an interesting subject for discussion: only it is not a whitmore an ethical discussion than the last was. Nor do I think that any exponent of naturalisticEthics would be willing to allow that this was all he meant. They are all so anxious to persuadeus that what they call the good is what we really ought to do. Do, pray, act so, because theword good is generally used to denote actions of this nature: such, on this view, would bethe substance of their teaching. And in so far as they tell us how we ought to act, their teachingis truly ethical, as they mean it to be. But how perfectly absurd is the reason they would givefor it! You are to do this, because most people use a certain word to denote conduct such asthis. You are to say the thing which is not, because most people call it lying. That is anargument just as good!My dear sirs, what we want to know from you as ethical teachers, isnot how people use a word; it is not even, what kind of actions they approve, which the use ofthis word good may certainly imply: what we want to know is simply what is good. We mayindeed agree that what most people do think good, is actually so; we shall at all events be gladto know their opinions: but when we say that their opinions about what is good, we do meanwhat we say; we do not care whether they call that thing horse or table or chair, gut orbon or ; we want to know what it is that they so call. When they say Pleasure is


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good, we cannot believe that they merely mean Pleasure is pleasure and nothing more thanthat.

Suppose a man says I am pleased; and suppose it is not a lie or a mistake but the truth.Well, if it is true, what does that mean? It means that his mind, a certain definite mind,distinguished by certain definite marks from all others has at this moment a certain definitefeeling called pleasure. Pleased means nothing but having pleasure, and though we may bemore pleased or less pleased, and even, we may admit for the present, have one or anotherkind of pleasure; yet in so far as it is pleasure we have, whether there be more or less of it, andwhether it be of one kind or another, what we have is one definite thing, absolutelyindefinable, some one thing that is the same in all the various degrees and in all the variouskinds of it that there may be. We may be able to say how it is related to other things: that, forexample, it is in the mind, that it causes desire, that we are conscious of it, etc., etc. We can, Isay, describe its relations to other things, but define it we can not. And if anybody tried todefine pleasure for us as being any other natural object; if anybody were to say, for instance,that pleasure means the sensation of red, and were to proceed to deduce from that that pleasureis a colour, we should be entitled to laugh at him and to distrust his future statements aboutpleasure. Well, that would be the same fallacy which I have called the naturalistic fallacy. Thatpleased does not mean having the sensation of red, or anything else whatever, does notprevent us from understanding what it does mean. It is enough for us to know that pleaseddoes mean having the sensation of pleasure, and though pleasure is absolutely indefinable,though pleasure is pleasure and nothing else whatever, yet we feel no difficulty in saying thatwe are pleased. The reason is, of course, that when I say I am pleased, I do not mean that Iam the same thing as having pleasure. And similarly no difficulty need be found in mysaying that pleasure is good and yet not meaning that pleasure is the same thing as good,that pleasure means good, and that good means pleasure. If I were to imagine that when I saidI am pleased, I meant that I was exactly the same thing as pleased, I should not indeed callthat a naturalistic fallacy, although it would be the same fallacy as I have called naturalisticwith reference to Ethics. The reason of this is obvious enough. When a man confuses twonatural objects with one another, defining the one by the other, if for instance, he confuseshimself, who is one natural object, with pleased or with pleasure which are others, thenthere is no reason to call the fallacy naturalistic. But if he confuses good, which is not in thesame sense a natural object, with any natural object whatever, then there is a reason for callingthat a naturalistic fallacy; its being made with regard to good marks it as something quitespecific, and this specific mistake deserves a name because it is so common. As for the reasonswhy good is not to be considered a natural object, they may be reserved for discussion inanother place. But, for the present, it is sufficient to notice this: Even if it were a naturalobject, that would not alter the nature of the fallacy nor diminish its importance one whit. Allthat I have said about it would remain quite equally true: only the name which I have called it


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would not be so appropriate as I think it is. And I do not care about the name: what I do careabout is the fallacy. It does not matter what we call it, provided we recognise it when we meetwith it. It is to be met with in almost every book on Ethics; and yet it is not recognised: andthat is why it is necessary to multiply illustrations of it, and convenient to give it a name. It is avery simple fallacy indeed. When we say that an orange is yellow, we do not think ourstatement binds us to hold that orange means nothing else than yellow, or that nothing canbe yellow but an orange. Supposing the orange is also sweet! Does that bind us to say thatsweet is exactly the same thing as yellow, that sweet must be defined as yellow? Andsupposing it be recognised that yellow just means yellow and nothing else whatever, doesthat make it any more difficult to hold that oranges are yellow? Most certainly it does not: onthe contrary, it would be absolutely meaningless to say that oranges were yellow unless yellowdid in the end mean just yellow and nothing else whateverunless it was absolutelyindefinable. We should not get any very clear notion about things, which are yellowweshould not get very far with our science, if we were bound to hold that everything which wasyellow, meant exactly the same thing as yellow. We should find we had to hold that an orangewas exactly the same thing as a stool, a piece of paper, a lemon, anything you like. We couldprove any number of absurdities; but should we be the nearer to the truth? Why, then, should itbe different with good? Why, if good is good and indefinable, should I be held to deny thatpleasure is good? Is there any difficulty in holding both to be true at once? On the contrary,there is no meaning in saying that pleasure is good, unless good is something different frompleasure. It is absolutely useless, so far as Ethics is concerned, to prove, as Mr Spencer tries todo, that increase of pleasure coincides with increase of life, unless good means somethingdifferent from either life or pleasure. He might just as well try to prove that an orange isyellow by shewing that it is always wrapped up in paper.

In fact, if it is not the case that good denotes something simple and indefinable, onlytwo alternatives are possible: either it is a complex, a given whole, about the correct analysisof which there could be disagreement; or else it means nothing at all, and there is no suchsubject as Ethics. In general, however, ethical philosophers have attempted to define good,without recognising what such an attempt must mean. They actually use arguments whichinvolve one or both of the absurdities considered in 11. We are, therefore, justified inconcluding that the attempt to define good is chiefly due to want of clearness as to the possiblenature of definition. There are, in fact, only two serious alternatives to be considered, in orderto establish the conclusion that good does denote a simple and indefinable notion. It mightpossibly denote a complex, as horse does; or it might have no meaning at all. Neither ofthese possibilities has, however, been clearly conceived and seriously maintained, as such, bythose who presume to define good; and both may be dismissed by a simple appeal to facts.


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(1) The hypothesis that disagreement about the meaning of good is disagreement with regardto the correct analysis of a given whole, may be most plainly seen to be incorrect byconsideration of the fact that, whatever definition may be offered, it may always, be asked,with significance, of the complex so defined, whether it is itself good. To take, for instance,one of the more plausible, because one of the more complicated of such proposed definitions,it may easily be thought, at first sight, that to be good may mean to be that which we desire todesire. Thus if we apply this definition to a particular instance and say When we think that Ais good, we are thinking that A is one of the things which we desire to desire, our propositionmay seem quite plausible. But, if we carry the investigation further, and ask ourselves Is itgood to desire to desire A? it is apparent, on a little reflection, that this question is itself asintelligible, as the original question, Is A good?that we are, in fact, now asking for exactlythe same information about the desire to desire A, for which we formerly asked with regard toA itself. But it is also apparent that the meaning of this second question cannot be correctlyanalysed into Is the desire to desire A one of the things which we desire to desire?: we havenot before our minds anything so complicated as the question Do we desire to desire to desireto desire A? Moreover any one can easily convince himself by inspection that the predicate ofthis propositiongoodis positively different from notion of desiring to desire whichenters into its subject: That we should desire to desire A is good is not merely equivalent toThat A should be good is good. It may indeed be true that what we desire to desire is alwaysgood; perhaps, even the converse may be true: but it is very doubtful whether this is the case,and the mere fact that we understand very well what is meant by doubting it, shews clearlythat we have to different notions before our mind.

(2) And the same consideration is sufficient to dismiss the hypothesis that good has nomeaning whatsoever. It is very natural to make the mistake of supposing that what isuniversally true is of such a nature that its negation would be self-contradictory: theimportance which has been assigned to analytic propositions in the history of philosophyshews how easy such a mistake is. And thus it is very easy to conclude that what seems to be auniversal ethical principle is in fact an identical proposition; that, if, for example, whatever iscalled good seems to be pleasant, the proposition Pleasure is the good does not assert aconnection between two different notions, but involves only one, that of pleasure, which iseasily recognised as a distinct entity. But whoever will attentively consider with himself whatis actually before his mind when he asks the question Is pleasure (or whatever it may be) afterall good? can easily satisfy himself that he is not merely wondering whether pleasure ispleasant. And if he will try this experiment with each suggested definition in succession, hemay become expert enough to recognise that in every case he has before his mind a uniqueobject, with regard to the connection of which with any other object, a distinct question maybe asked. Every one does in fact understand the question Is this good? When he thinks of it,his state of mind is different from what it would be, were he asked Is this pleasant, or desired,


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or approved? It has a distinct meaning for him, even though he may not recognise in whatrespect it is distinct. Whenever he thinks of intrinsic value, or intrinsic worth, or says that athing ought to exist, he has before his mind the unique objectthe unique property ofthingsthat I mean by good. Everybody is constantly aware of this notion, although he maynever become aware at all that it is different from other notions of which he is also aware. But,for correct ethical reasoning, it is extremely important that he should become aware of thisfact; and as soon as the nature of the problem is closely understood, there should be littledifficulty in advancing so far in analysis.

Good, then, is indefinable; and yet, so far as I know, there is only one ethical writer,Prof. Henry Sidgwick, who has clearly recognised and stated this fact. We shall see, indeed,how far many of the most reputed ethical systems fall short of drawing the conclusions whichfollow from such a recognition. At present I will only quote from one instance, which willserve to illustrate the meaning and importance of this principle that good is indefinable, or, asProf. Sidgwick says, an unanalysable notion. It is an instance to which Prof. Sidgwickhimself refers in a note on the passage, in which he argues that ought is unanalysable .

Bentham, says Sidgwick, explains that his fundamental principle states the greatesthappiness of all those whose interest is in question as being the right and proper end of humanaction; and yet his language in other passages of the same chapter would seem to implythat he means by the word right conducive to the general happiness. Prof. Sidgwick seesthat, if you take these two statements together, you get the absurd result that greatesthappiness is the end of human action, which is conducive to the general happiness; and soabsurd does it seem to him to call this result, as Bentham calls it, the fundamental principle ofa moral system, that he suggests that Bentham cannot have meant it. Yet Prof. Sidgwickhimself states elsewhere that Psychological Hedonism is not seldom confounded withEgoistic Hedonism; and that confusion, as we shall see, rests chiefly on that same fallacy, thenaturalistic fallacy, which is implied in Benthams statements. Prof. Sidgwick admits thereforethat this fallacy is sometimes committed, absurd as it is; and I am inclined to think thatBentham may really have been one of those who committed it. Mill, as we shall see, certainlydid commit it. In any case, whether Bentham committed it or not, his doctrine, as abovequoted, will serve as a very good illustration of this fallacy, and of the importance of thecontrary proposition that good is indefinable.

Let us consider this doctrine. Bentham seems to imply, so Prof. Sidgwick says, that the wordright means conducive to general happiness. Now this, by itself, need not necessarilyinvolve the naturalistic fallacy. For the word right is very commonly appropriated to actionswhich lead to the attainment of what is good; which are regarded as means to the ideal and notas ends-in-themselves. This use of right, as denoting what is good as a means, whether or not


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it also be good as an end, is indeed the use to which I shall confine the word. Had Benthambeen using right in this sense, it might be perfectly consistent for him to define right asconducive to the general happiness provided only (and note this proviso) he had alreadyproved, or laid down as an axiom, that general happiness was the good, or (what is equivalentto this) that general happiness alone was good. For in that case he would have already definedthe good as general happiness (a position perfectly consistent, we have seen, with thecontention that good is indefinable), and, since right was to be defined as conducive to thegood, it would actually mean conducive to general happiness. But this method of escapefrom the charge of having committed the naturalistic fallacy has been closed by Benthamhimself. For his fundamental principle is, we see, that the greatest happiness of all concernedis the right and proper end of human action. He applies the word right, therefore, to the end,as such, not only to the means which are conducive to it; and that being so, right can no longerbe defined as conducive to the general happiness, without involving the fallacy in question.For now it is obvious that the definition of right as conducive to general happiness can be usedby him in support of the fundamental principle that general happiness is the right end; insteadof being itself derived from that principle. If right, by definition, means conducive to generalhappiness, then it is obvious that general happiness is the right end. It is not necessary nowfirst to prove or assert that general happiness is the right end, before right is defined asconducive to general happinessa perfectly valid procedure; but on the contrary the definitionof right as conducive to general happiness proves general happiness to be the right endaperfectly invalid procedure, since in this case the statement that general happiness is the rightend of human action is not an ethical principle at all, but either, as we have seen, aproposition about the meaning of words, or else a proposition about the nature of generalhappiness, not about its rightness or its goodness.

Now, I do not wish the importance I assign to this fallacy to be misunderstood. The discoveryof it does not at all refute Benthams contention that greatest happiness is the proper end ofhuman action, if that be understood as an ethical proposition, as he undoubtedly intended it.That principle may be true all the same; we shall consider whether it is so in the succeedingchapters. Bentham might have maintained it, as Prof. Sidgwick does, even if the fallacy hadbeen pointed out to him. What I am maintaining is that the reasons which he actually gives forhis ethical proposition are fallacious ones so far as they consist in a definition of right. What Isuggest is that he did not perceive them to be fallacious; that, if he had done so, he would havebeen led to seek for other reasons in support of his Utilitarianism; and that, had he sought forother reasons, he might have found none which he thought to be sufficient. In that case hewould have changed his whole systema most important consequence. It is undoubtedly alsopossible that he would have thought other reasons to be sufficient, and in that case his ethicalsystem, in its main results, would still have stood. But, even in this latter case, his use of thefallacy would be a serious objection to him as an ethical philosopher. For it is the business of


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Ethics, I must insist, not only to obtain true results, but also to find valid reasons for them. Thedirect object of Ethics is knowledge and not practice; and any one who uses the naturalisticfallacy has certainly not fulfilled this first object, however correct his practical principles maybe.

My objections to Naturalism are then, in the first place, that it offers no reason at all, far lessany valid reason, for any ethical principle whatever; and in this it already fails to satisfy therequirements of Ethics, as a scientific study. But in the second place I contend that, though itgives a reason for no ethical principle, it is the cause of the acceptance of false principlesitdeludes the mind into accepting ethical principles, which are false; and in this it is contrary toevery aim of Ethics. It is easy to see that if we start with a definition of right conduct asconduct conducive to general happiness; then, knowing that right conduct is universallyconduct conducive to the good, we very easily arrive at the result that the good is generalhappiness. If, on the other hand, we once recognise that we must start our Ethics without adefinition, we shall be much more apt to look about us, before we adopt any ethical principlewhatever, and the more we look about us, the less likely we are to adopt a false one. It may bereplied to this: Yes, but we shall look about us just as much, before we settle on our definition,and are therefore just as likely to be right. But I will try to shew that this is not the case. If westart with the conviction that a definition of good can be found, we start with the convictionthat the good can mean nothing else than some one property of things, and our only businesswill then be to discover what that property is. But if we recognise that, so far as the meaning ofgood goes, anything whatever may be good, we start with a much more open mind. Moreover,apart from the fact that, when we think we have a definition, we cannot logically defend ourethical principles in any way whatever, we shall also be much less apt to defend them well,even if illogically. For we shall start with the conviction that good must mean so and so, andshall therefore be inclined either to misunderstand our opponents arguments or to cut themshort with the reply, This is not an open question: the very meaning of the word decides it; noone can think otherwise except through confusion.

14, n. 1: Methods of Ethics, Bk. I, Chap. iii, 1 (6th edition).

14, n. 2: Methods of Ethics, Bk. I, Chap. iv, 1.

Our first conclusion as to the subject-matter of Ethics is, then, that there is a simple,indefinable, unanalysable object of thought by reference to which it must be defined. By whatname we call this unique object is a matter of indifference, so long as we clearly recognisewhat it is and that it does differ from other objects. The words which are commonly taken asthe signs of ethical judgments all do refer to it; and they are expressions of ethical judgments


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solely because they do so refer. But they may refer to it in two different ways, which it is veryimportant to distinguish, if we are to have a complete definition of the range of ethicaljudgments. Before I proceeded to argue that there was such an indefinable notion involved inethical notions, I stated ( 4) that it was necessary for Ethics to enumerate all true universaljudgments, asserting that such and such a thing was good, whenever it occurred. But, althoughall such judgments do refer to that unique notion which I have called good, they do not allrefer to it in the same way. They may either assert that this unique property does always attachto the thing in question, or else they may assert only that the thing in question is a cause ornecessary condition for the existence of other things to which this unique property does attach.The nature of these two species of universal ethical judgments is extremely different; and agreat part of the difficulties, which are met with in ordinary ethical speculation, are due to thefailure to distinguish them clearly. Their difference has, indeed, received expression inordinary language by the contrast between the terms good as means and good in itself,value as a means and intrinsic value. But those terms are apt to be applied correctly only inthe more obvious instances; and this seems to be due to the fact that the distinction betweenthe conceptions which they denote has not been made a separate object of investigation. Thisdistinction may be briefly pointed out as follows.

Whenever we judge that a thing is good as a means, we are making a judgment withregard to its causal relations: we judge both that it will have a particular kind of effect, andthat that effect will be good in itself. But to find causal judgments that are universally true isnotoriously a matter of extreme difficulty. The late date at which most of the physical sciencesbecame exact, and the comparative fewness of the laws which they have succeeded inestablishing even now, are sufficient proofs of this difficulty. With regard, then, to what are themost frequent objects of ethical judgments, namely actions, it is obvious that we cannot besatisfied that any of our universal causal judgments are true, even in the sense in whichscientific laws are so. We cannot even discover hypothetical laws of the form Exactly thisaction will always, under these conditions, produce exactly that effect. But for a correctethical judgment with regard to the effects of certain actions we require more than this in tworespects. (1) We require to know that a given action will produce a certain effect, underwhatever circumstances it occurs. But this is certainly impossible. It is certain that in differentcircumstances the same action may produce effects that are utterly different in all respectsupon which the value of the effects depends. Hence we can never be entitled to more than ageneralisationto a proposition of the form This result generally follows this kind of action;and even this generalisation will only be true, if the circumstances under which the actionoccurs are generally the same. This is in fact the case, to a great extent, within any oneparticular age and state of society. But, when we take other ages into account, in many mostimportant cases the normal circumstances of a given kind of action will be so different, thatthe generalisation which is true for one will not be true for another. With regard then to ethical


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judgments which assert that a certain kind of action is good as a means to a certain kind ofeffect, none will be universally true; and many, though generally true at one period, will begenerally false at others. But (2) we require to know not only that one good effect will beproduced, but that, among all subsequent events affected by the action in question, the balanceof good will be greater than if any other possible action had been performed. In other words, tojudge that an action is generally a means to good is to judge not only that it generally doessome good, but that it generally does the greatest good of which the circumstances admit. Inthis respect ethical judgments about the effects of action involve a difficulty and acomplication far greater than that involved in the establishment of scientific laws. For the latterwe need only consider a single effect; for the former it is essential to consider not only this,but the effects of that effect, and so on as far as our view into the future can reach. It is,indeed, obvious that our view can never reach far enough for us to be certain that any actionwill produce the best possible effects. We must be content, if the greatest possible balance ofgood seems to be produced within a limited period. But it is important to notice that the wholeseries of effects within a period of considerable length is actually taken account of in ourcommon judgments that an action is good as a means; and that hence this additionalcomplication, which makes ethical generalisations so far more difficult to establish thanscientific laws, is one which is involved in actual ethical discussions, and is of practicalimportance. The commonest rules of conduct involve such considerations as the balancing offuture bad health against immediate gains; and even if we can never settle with any certaintyhow we shall secure the greatest possible total of good, we try at least to assure ourselves thatprobable future evils will not be greater than the immediate good.

There are, then, judgments which state that certain kinds of things have good effects;and such judgments, for the reasons just given, have the important characteristics (1) that theyare unlikely to be true, if they state that the kind of thing in question always has good effects,and (2) that, even if they only state that it generally has good effects, many of them will onlybe true of certain periods in the worlds history. On the other hand there are judgments whichstate that certain kinds of things are themselves good; and these differ from the last in that, iftrue at all, they are all of them universally true. It is, therefore, extremely important todistinguish these two kinds of possible judgments. Both may be expressed in the samelanguage: in both cases we commonly say Such and such a thing is good. But in the one casegood will mean good as means, i.e. merely that the thing is a means to goodwill havegood effects: in the other case it will mean good as endwe shall be judging that the thingitself has the property which, in the first case, we asserted only to belong to its effects. It isplain that these are very different assertions to make about a thing; it is plain that either or bothof them may be made, both truly and falsely, about all manner of things; and it is certain thatunless we are clear as to which of the two we mean to assert, we shall have a very poor chanceof deciding rightly whether our assertion is true or false. It is precisely this clearness as to the


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meaning of the question asked which has hitherto been almost entirely lacking in ethicalspeculation. Ethics has always been predominantly concerned with the investigation of alimited class of actions. With regard to these we may ask both how far they are good inthemselves and how far they have a general tendency to produce good results. And thearguments brought forward in ethical discussion have always been of both classesboth suchas would prove the conduct in question to be good in itself and such as would prove it to begood as a means. But that these are the only questions which any ethical discussion can haveto settle, and that to settle the one is not the same thing as to settle the otherthese twofundamental facts have in general escaped the notice of ethical philosophers. Ethical questionsare commonly asked in an ambiguous form. It is asked What is a mans duty under thesecircumstances? or Is it right to act this way? or What ought we to aim at securing? But allthese questions are capable of further analysis; a correct answer to any of them involves bothjudgments of what is good in itself and causal judgments. This is implied even by those whomaintain that we have a direct and immediate judgment of absolute rights and duties. Such ajudgment can only mean that the course of action in question is the best thing to do; that, byacting so, every good that can be secured will have been secured. Now we are not concernedwith the question whether such a judgment will ever be true. The question is: What does itimply, if it is true? And the only possible answer is that, whether true or false, it implies both aproposition as to the degree of goodness of the action in question, as compared with otherthings, and a number of causal propositions. For it cannot be denied that the action will haveconsequences: and to deny that the consequences matter is to make a judgment of theirintrinsic value, as compared with the action itself. In asserting that the action is the best thingto do, we assert that it together with its consequences presents a greater sum of intrinsic valuethan any possible alternative. And this condition may be realised by any of the threecases:(a) If the action itself has greater intrinsic value than any alternative, whereas both itsconsequences and those of the alternatives are absolutely devoid either of intrinsic merit orintrinsic demerit; or (b) if, though its consequences are intrinsically bad, the balance ofintrinsic value is greater than would be produced by any alternative; or (c) if, its consequencesbeing intrinsically good, the degree of value belonging to them and it conjointly is greater thanthat of any alternative series. In short, to assert that a certain line of conduct is, at a given time,absolutely right or obligatory, is obviously to assert that more good or less evil will exist in theworld, if it be adopted than if anything else be done instead. But this implies a judgment as tothe value both of its own consequences and of those of any possible alternative. And that anaction will have such and such consequences involves a number of causal judgments.

Similarly, in answering the question What ought we to aim at securing? causal judgments areagain involved, but in a somewhat different way. We are liable to forget, because it is soobvious, that this question can never be answered correctly except by naming somethingwhich can be secured. Not everything can be secured; and, even if we judge that nothing


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which cannot be obtained would be of equal value with that which can, the possibility of thelatter, as well as its value, is essential to its being a proper end of action. Accordingly neitherour judgments as to what actions we ought to perform, nor even our judgments as to the endswhich they ought to produce, are pure judgments of intrinsic value. With regard to the former,an action which is absolutely obligatory may have no intrinsic value whatsoever; that it isperfectly virtuous may mean merely that it causes the best possible effects. And with regard tothe latter, these best possible results which justify our action can, in any case, have only somuch of intrinsic value as the laws of nature allow us to secure; and they in their turn mayhave no intrinsic value whatsoever, but may merely be a means to the attainment (in a stillfurther future) of something that has such value. Whenever, therefore, we ask What ought weto do? or What ought we to try to get? we are asking questions which involve a correctanswer to two others, completely different in kind from one another. We must know both whatdegree of intrinsic value different things have, and how these different things may be obtained.But the vast majority of questions which have actually been discussed in Ethicsall practicalquestions, indeedinvolve this double knowledge; and they have been discussed without anyclear separation of the two distinct questions involved. A great part of the vast disagreementsprevalent in Ethics is to be attributed to this failure in analysis. By the use of conceptionswhich involve both that of intrinsic value and that of causal relation, as if they involvedintrinsic value only, two different errors have been rendered almost universal. Either it isassumed that nothing has intrinsic value which is not possible, or else it is assumed that whatis necessary must have intrinsic value. Hence the primary and peculiar business of Ethics, thedetermination of what things have intrinsic value and in what degrees, has received noadequate treatment at all. And on the other hand a thorough discussion of means has been alsolargely neglected, owing to an obscure perception of the truth that it is perfectly irrelevant tothe question of intrinsic values. But however this may be, and however strongly any particularreader may be convinced that some one of the mutually contradictory systems which hold thefield has a given correct answer either to the question what has intrinsic value, or to thequestion what we ought to do, or to both, it must at least be admitted that the questions what isbest in itself and what will bring about the best possible, are utterly distinct; that both belongto the actual subject-matter of Ethics; and that the more clearly distinct questions aredistinguished, the better is our chance of answering both correctly.

There remains one point which must not be ommitted in a complete description of thekind of questions which Ethics has to answer. The main division of these questions is, as Ihave said, into two; the question what things are good in themselves, and the question to whatother things these are related as effects. The first of these, which is the primary ethical questionand is presupposed by the other, includes a correct comparison of the various things whichhave intrinsic value (if there are many such) in respect of the degree of value which they have;and such comparison involves a difficulty of principle which has greatly aided the confusion


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of intrinsic value with mere goodness as a means. It has been pointed out that one differencebetween a judgment which asserts that a thing is good in itself, and a judgment which assertsthat it is a means to good, consists in the fact that the first, if true of one instance of the thingin question, is necessarily true of all; whereas a thing which has good effects under somecircumstances may have bad ones under others. Now it is certainly true that all judgments ofintrinsic value are in this sense universal; but the principle which I have now to enunciate mayeasily make it appear as if they were not so but resembled the judgment of means in beingmerely general. There is, as will presently be maintained, a vast number of different things,each of which has intrinsic value; there are also very many which are positively bad; and thereis a still larger class of things, which appear to be indifferent. But a thing belonging to any ofthese three classes may occur as part of a whole, which includes among its other parts otherthings belonging both to the same and to the other two classes; and these wholes, as such, mayalso have intrinsic value. The paradox, to which it is necessary to call attention, is that thevalue of such a whole bears no regular proportion to the sum of the values of its parts. It iscertain that a good thing may exist in such a relation to another good thing that the value of thewhole thus formed is immensely greater than the sum of the values of the two good things. Itis certain that a whole formed of a good thing and an indifferent thing may have immenselygreater value than that good thing itself possesses. It is certain that two bad things or a badthing and an indifferent thing may form a whole much worse than the sum of badness of itsparts. And it seems as if indifferent things may also be the sole constituents of a whole whichhas great value, either positive or negative. Whether the addition of a bad thing to a goodwhole may increase the positive value of the whole, or the addition of a bad thing to a bad mayproduce a whole having a positive value, may seem more doubtful; but it is, at least, possible,and this possibility must be taken into account in our ethical investigations. However we maydecide particular questions, the principle is clear. The value of a whole must not be assumed tobe the same as the sum of the values of its parts.

A single instance will suffice to illustrate the kind of relation in question. It seems to be truethat to be conscious of a beautiful object is of great intrinsic value; whereas the same object, ifno one be conscious of it, has certainly comparatively little value, and it is commonly held tohave none at all. But the consciousness of a beautiful object is certainly a whole of some sortin which we can distinguish as parts the object on the one hand and the being conscious on theother. Now this latter factor occurs as part of a different whole, whenever we are conscious ofanything; and it would seem that some of these wholes have at all events very little value, andmay even be indifferent or positively bad. Yet we cannot always attribute the slightness oftheir value to any positive demerit in the object which differentiates them from theconsciousness of beauty; the object itself may approach as near as possible to absoluteneutrality. Since, therefore, mere consciousness does not always confer great value upon thewhole of which it forms a part, we cannot attribute the great superiority of the consciousness


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of a beautiful thing over the beautiful thing itself to the mere addition of the value ofconsciousness to that of the beautiful thing. Whatever the intrinsic value of consciousness maybe, it does not give to the whole of which it forms a part a value proportional to the sum of itsvalue and that of its object. If this be so, we have here an instance of a whole possessing adifferent intrinsic value from the sum of that of its parts; and whether it be so or not, what ismeant by such a difference is illustrated by this case.

There are, then, wholes which possess the property that their value is different from thesum of the values of their parts, and the relations which subsist between such parts and thewhole of which they form a part have not hitherto been distinctly recognised or received aseparate name. Two points are especially worthy of notice. (1) It is plain that the existence ofany such part is a necessary condition for the existence of that good which is constituted by thewhole. And exactly the same language will also express the relation between a means and thegood thing which is its effect. But yet there is a most important difference between the twocases, constituted by the fact that the part is, whereas the means is not, a part of the good thingfor the existence of which its existence is a necessary condition. The necessity by which, if thegood in question is to exist, the means to it must exist is merely a natural or causal necessity. Ifthe laws of nature were different, exactly the same good might exist, although what is now anecessary condition of its existence did not exist. The existence of the means has no intrinsicvalue; and its utter annihilation would leave the value of that which it is now necessary tosecure entirely unchanged. But in the case of a part of such a whole as we are nowconsidering, it is otherwise. In this case the good in question cannot conceivably exist, unlessthe part exist also. The necessity which connects the two is quite independent of natural law.What is asserted to have intrinsic value is the existence of the whole; and the existence of thewhole includes the existence of its part. Suppose the part removed, and what remains is notwhat was asserted to have intrinsic value; but if we suppose a means removed, what remains isjust what was asserted to have intrinsic value. And yet (2) the existence of the part may itselfhave no more intrinsic value than that of the means. It is this fact which constitutes theparadox of the relation which we are discussing. It has just been said that what has intrinsicvalue is the existence of the whole, and that this includes the existence of the part; and fromthis it would seem a natural inference that the existence of the part has intrinsic value. But theinference would be as false as if we were to conclude that, because the number of two stoneswas two, each of the stones was also two. The part of a valuable whole retains exactly thesame value when it is, as when it is not, a part of that whole. If it had value under othercircumstances, its value is not any greater, when it is part of a far more valuable whole; and ifit had no value by itself, it has none still, however great be that of the whole of which it nowforms a part. We are not then justified in asserting that one and the same thing is under somecircumstances intrinsically good, and under others not so; as we are justified in asserting of ameans that it sometimes does and sometimes does not produce good results. And yet we are


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justified in asserting that it is far more desirable that a certain thing should exist under somecircumstances than under others; namely when other things will exist in such relations to it asto form a more valuable whole. It will not have more intrinsic value under those circumstancesthan under others; it will not necessarily even be a means to the existence of things havingmore intrinsic value; but it will, like a means, be a necessary condition for the existence of thatwhich has greater intrinsic value, although, unlike a means, it will itself form a part of themore valuable existent.

I have said that the peculiar relation between part and whole which I have just beentrying to define is one which has received no separate name. It would, however, be useful thatit should have one; and there is a name, which might well be appropriated to it, if only it couldbe divorced from its present unfortunate usage. Philosophers, especially those who profess tohave derived great benefit from the writings of Hegel, have latterly made much use of theterms organic whole, organic unity, organic relation. The reason why these terms mightwell be appropriated to the use suggested is that the peculiar relation of parts to whole, justdefined, is one of the properties which distinguishes the wholes to which they are actuallyapplied with the greatest frequency. And the reason why it is desirable that they should bedivorced from their present usage is that, as at present used, they have no distinct sense and,on the contrary, both imply and propagate errors of confusion.

To say that a thing is an organic whole is generally understood to imply that its parts arerelated to one another and to itself as means to end; it is also understood to imply that theyhave a property described in some such phrase as that they have no meaning or significanceapart from the whole; and finally such a whole is also treated as if it had the property to whichI am proposing that the name should be confined. But those who use the term give us, ingeneral, no hint as to how they suppose these three properties to be related to one another. Itseems generally to be assumed that they are identical; and always, at least, that they arenecessarily connected with one another. That they are not identical I have already tried toshew; to suppose them so is to neglect the very distinctions pointed out in the last paragraph;and the usage might well be discontinued merely because it encourages such neglect. But astill more cogent reason for its discontinuance is that, so far from being necessarily connected,the second is a property which can attach to nothing, being a self-contradictory conception;whereas the first, if we insist on its most important sense, applies to many cases, to which wehave no reason to think that the third applies also, and the third certainly applies to many towhich the first does not apply.

These relations between the three properties just distinguished may be illustrated byreferences to a whole of the kind from which the name organic was deriveda whole whichis an organism in the scientific sensenamely the human body.


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(1) There exists between many parts of our body (though not between all) a relation which hasbeen familiarised by the fable, attributed to Menenius Agrippa, concerning the belly and itsmembers. We can find it in parts such that the continued existence of one is a necessarycondition for the continued existence of the other; while the continued existence of this latteris also a necessary condition for the continued existence of the former. This amounts to nomore than saying that in the body we hve instances of two things, both enduring for sometime, which have a relation of mutual causal dependence on one anothera relation ofreciprocity. Frequently no more than this is meant by saying that the parts of the body forman organic unity, or that they are mutually means and ends to one another. And we certainlyhave here a striking characteristic of living things. But it would be extremely rash to assert thatthis relation of mutual causal dependence was only exhibited by living things and hence wassufficient to define their peculiarity. And it is obvious that of two things which have thisrelation of mutual dependence, neither may have intrinsic value, or one may have it and theother lack it. They are not necessarily ends to one another in any sense except that in whichend means effect. And moreover it is plain that in this sense the whole cannot be an end toany of its parts. We are apt to talk of the whole in contrast to one of its parts, when in fact wemean only the rest of the parts. But strictly the whole must include all its parts and no part canbe a cause of the whole, because it cannot be a cause of itself. It is plain, therefore, that thisrelation of mutual causal dependence implies nothing with regard to the value of either of theobjects which have it; and that, even if both of them happen also to have value, this relationbetween them is one which cannot hold between part and whole.

But (2) it may also be the case that our body as a whole has a value greater than the sum ofvalues of its parts; and this may be what is meant when it is said that the parts are means to thewhole. It is obvious that if we ask the question Why should the parts be such as they are? aproper answer may be Because the whole they form has so much value. But it is equallyobvious that the relation which we thus assert to exist between part and whole is quitedifferent from that which we assert to exist between part and part when we say This partexists, because that one could not exist without it. In the latter case we assert the two parts tobe causally connected; but, in the former, part and whole cannot be causally connected and therelation which we assert to exist between them may exist even though the parts are notcausally connected either. All the parts of a picture do not have that relation of mutual causaldependence, which certain parts of the body have, and yet the existence of those which do nothave it may be absolutely essential to the value of the whole. The two relations are quitedistinct in kind, and we cannot infer the existence of the one from that of the other. It can,therefore, serve no useful purpose to include them both under the same name; and if we are tosay that a whole is organic because its parts are (in this sense) means to the whole, we mustnot say that it is organic because its parts are causally dependent on one another.


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22. But finally (3) the sense which has been most prominent in recent uses of the termorganic whole is one whereby it asserts the parts of such a whole have a property which theparts of no whole can possibly have. It is supposed that just as the whole would not be what itis but for the existence of the parts, so the parts would not be what they are but for theexistence of the whole; and this is understood to mean not merely that any particular partcould not exist unless the others existed too (which is the case where relation (1) existsbetween the parts), but actually that the part is no distinct object of thoughtthat the whole, ofwhich it is a part, is in turn a part of it. That this supposition is self-contradictory a very littlereflection should be sufficient to shew. We may admit, indeed, that when a particular thing is apart of a whole, it does possess a predicate which it would not otherwise possessnamely thatit is a part of the whole. But what cannot be admitted is that this predicate alters the nature orenters into the definition of the thing which has it. When we think of the part itself, we meanjust that which we assert, in this case, to have the predicate that it is part of the whole; and themere assertion that it is a part of the whole involves that it should itself be distinct from thatwhich we assert of it. Otherwise we contradict ourselves since we assert that, not it, butsomething elsenamely it together with that which we assert of ithas the predicate whichwe assert of it. In short, it is obvious that no part contains analytically the whole to which itbelongs, or any other parts of that whole. The relation of part to whole is not the same as thatof whole to part; and the very definition of the latter is that it does contain analytically thatwhich it is said to be its part. And yet this very self-contradictory doctrine is the chief markwhich shews the influence of Hegel upon modern philosophyan influence which pervadesalmost the whole of orthodox philosophy. This is what is generally implied by the cry againstfalsification by abstraction: that a whole is always a part of its part! If you want to know thetruth about a part, we are told, you must consider not that part, but something elsenamelythe whole: nothing is true of the part, but only of the whole. Yet plainly it must be true of thepart at least that it is part of the whole; and it is obvious that when we say it is, we do not meanmerely that the whole is a part of itself. This doctrine, therefore, that a part can have nomeaning or significance apart from its whole must be utterly rejected. It implies itself that thestatement This is a part of that whole has a meaning; and in order that this may have one,both subject and predicate must have a distinct meaning. And it is easy to see how this flsedoctrine has arisen by confusion with the two relations (1) and (2) which may really beproperties of wholes.

(a) The existence of a part may be connected by a natural or causal necessity with theexistence of the other parts of its whole; and further what is a part of a whole and what hasceased to be such a part, although differing intrinsically from one another, may be called byone and the same name. Thus, to take a typical example, if an arm be cut off from the humanbody, we still call it an arm. Yet an arm, when it is a part of the body, undoubtedly differs froma dead arm; and hence we may easily be led to say The arm which is a part of the body would


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not be what it is, if it were not such a part, and to think that the contradiction thus expressed isin reality a characteristic of things. But, in fact, the dead arm never was a part of the body; it isonly partially identical with the living arm. Those parts of it which are identical with parts ofthe living arm are exactly the same, whether they belong to the body or not; and in them wehave an undeniable instance of one and the same thing at one time forming a part, and atanother not forming a part of the presumed organic whole. On the other hand thoseproperties which are possessed by the living, and not by the dead arm, do not exist in achanged form in the latter: they simply do not exist there at all. By a causal necessity theirexistence depends on their having that relation to the other parts of the body which we expressby saying that they form part of it. Yet, most certainly, if they ever did not form part of thebody, they would be exactly what they are when they do. That they differ intrinsically from theproperties of the dead arm and that they form part of the body are propositions not analyticallyrelated to one another. There is no contradiction in supposing them to retain such intrinsicdifferences and yet not to form part of the body.

But (b) when we are told that a living arm has no meaning or significance apart from the bodyto which it belongs, a different fallacy is also suggested. To have meaning or significance iscommonly used in the sense of to have importance; and this again means to have valueeither as a means or as an end. Now it is quite possible that even a living arm, apart from itsbody, would have no intrinsic value whatever; although the whole of which it is a part hasgreat intrinsic value owing to its presence. Thus we may easily come to say that, as a part ofthe body, it has great value, whereas by itself it would have none; and thus that its wholemeaning lies in its relation to the body. But in fact the value in question obviously does notbelong to it at all. To have value merely as a part is equivalent to having no value at all, butmerely being a part of that which has it. Owing, however, to neglect of this distinction, theassertion that a part has value, as a part, which it would not otherwise have, easily leads to theassumption that it is also different, as a part, from what it would otherwise be; for it is, in fact,true that two things which have a different value must also differ in other respects. Hence theassumption that one and the same thing, because it is a part of a more valuable whole at onetime than at another, therefore has more intrinsic value at one time than at another, hasencouraged the self-contradictory belief that one and the same thing may be two differentthings, and that only in one of its forms is it truly what it is.

For these reasons, I shall, where it seems convenient, take the liberty to use the term organicwith a special sense. I shall use it to denote the fact that a whole has an intrinsic value differentin amount from the sum of the values of its parts. I shall use it to denote this and only this. Theterm will not imply any causal relation whatever between the parts of the whole in question.And it will not imply either, that the parts are inconceivable except as parts of that whole, orthat, when they form parts of such a whole, they have a value different from that which they


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23.

would have if they did not. Understood in this special and perfectly definite sense the relationof an organic whole to its parts is one of the most important which Ethics has to recognise. Achief part of that science should be occupied in comparing the relative values of variousgoods; and the grossest errors will be committed in such comparison if it be assumed thatwherever two things form a whole, the value of that whole is merely the sum of the values ofthose two things. With this question of organic wholes, then, we complete the enumeration ofthe kind of problems, with which it is the business of Ethics to deal.

In this chapter I have endeavoured to enforce the following conclusions. (1) Thepeculiarity of Ethics is not that it investigates assertions about human conduct, but that itinvestigates assertions about the property of things which is denoted by the term good, andthe converse property denoted by the term bad. It must, in order to establish its conclusions,investigate the truth of all such assertions, except those which assert the relation of thisproperty only to a single existent (14). (2) This property, by reference to which the subject-matter of Ethics must be defined, is itself simple and indefinable (514). And (3) allassertions about its relation to other things are of two, and only two, kinds: they either assert inwhat degree things themselves possess this property, or else they assert causal relationsbetween other things and those which possess it (1517). Finally, (4) in considering thedifferent degrees in which things themselves possess this property, we have to take account ofthe fact that a whole may possess it in a degree different from that which is obtained bysumming the degrees in which its parts possess it (1822).

Preface | Contents | Chapter II: Naturalistic Ethics

Principia Ethica was written by G. E. Moore, and published in 1903. It is now available in the Public

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Principia Ethica (1903) Chapter I: The Subject-Matter of Ethics. · Chapter I: The Subject-Matter of Ethics. ... human beings, is good, and what is ... does not deal at all with facts